Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (40 page)

      
Even though it was still raining, Jim brought Charlee to town that night just after supper. Expecting a pretty, voluptuous creature bursting the seams of a tight calico dress and batting her eyes at Jim, Deborah was amazed at the forlorn, half-drowned waif and her scraggly cat.

      
One look at the wet little figure huddled pathetically on the saddle of her paint horse made Deborah's heart go out to Charlee McAllister. She clutched a scrofulous orange tom in a death grip, as if he were her talisman against life's cruelties. Her proud, stiff carriage and the pugnacious set of her chin as she brushed aside Jim's assistance in dismounting spoke volumes.

      
Deborah tried hard not to stare at the urchin's clothes. Charlee wore a pair of frazzled, baggy trousers and a man's oversize shirt. Although well mended and clean, they were decidedly the worse for wear and hung like sacking on her thin body. Her hair was knotted in a braided bun at the back of her head, covered against the evening rain with a battered felt hat.

      
Why, she's plain
, Deborah thought as she shifted her evaluation quickly from the unsightly rags to the fiercely set little freckled face beneath the hat. The cat jumped free of her arms and scampered up onto the dryness of the porch. Deborah knelt and stroked him as he twined around her skirts, giving herself time to recover from the shock and chagrin. She must make Charlee McAllister feel welcome. When the girl and Jim mounted the stairs and stepped beneath the shelter of the porch, she stood and extended her hand.

      
Although thin and tiny, Charlee had a firm grip and clear green eyes. She smiled hesitantly and said, ‘‘Hello, Mrs. Kensington. I'm pleased to meet you.”

      
After Jim left, Deborah showed Charlee to her room where she deposited her meager belongings. Then, Deborah introduced her to Sadie and Chester, as well as Racine Schwartz and Otis Bierbaum, two of the boarders who were still up playing checkers in the parlor. Mercifully, none of the women boarders were about. She must get the girl into some decent clothes before anyone else saw her and was scandalized.

      
J
ust as Celine and Claude were scandalized by you?
The lonely misfit of a girl had struck a chord in her. She could not help but compare herself to Charlee. She had entered the alien and forbidding elegance of the Flamencos' home with the same trepidation the Missouri hill girl felt here in San Antonio. And, like Charlee, who was obviously smitten with Jim Slade, she had loved a man who did not return her affection either. She felt in her bones that she and Charlee would become fast friends.

* * * *

      
It had been a long, hot trip from Boston to Renacimiento, Rafe thought as he walked to the corral. He was breaking a special new horse, a big, orangish sorrel with a white mane and tail, unusual both for its coloring and its size. The stallion had not been captured by his mustangers but rather purchased from an itinerant trader who said he had taken it off the high plains to the far north. Rafe suspected it had been stolen but could prove nothing. The magnificent animal had been mistreated, that much was clear, so he had rescued it from the brutal dealer, paying an exorbitant price. He wanted to gentle the stallion as his own saddle horse.

      
Admiring the beautiful animal's coat gleaming a pale orange-brown in the sunlight, he was reminded of the patina of the maple furniture Adam Manchester had sent to Renacimiento. The pieces were special favorites of Deborah's and her father had given them to Rafe as a parting gesture of goodwill.

      
The horse shied as the man approached him, then calmed at the sound of Rafe's voice, silky and whispering, hypnotic. “Yes, you shine like polished New England maple. When I finish, you'll have the manners of the most polished Bostonian, too.” He thought a moment, then chuckled. “I've considered what to name you—how does Bostonian sound?” As he spoke, he swung into the saddle and took the reins from the cowhand holding them, keeping up the low, musical conversation. He'd been gentling the horse since his return home. The stallion was smart and spirited. If only he could reclaim its affections, lost to some man's cruel and thoughtless actions in the past.

      
Joe De Villiers watched Rafe work the stallion, amazed as always by how his partner could communicate with horses. Once in the saddle, all Rafe's pain and sorrow seemed to evaporate as he became one with the animal. It was a good thing to have this new diversion. Ever since Rafe had returned from Boston, he had been morose and withdrawn.

      
The half-breed sighed, recalling Lucia's reaction when all Deborah's beautiful things had arrived. She had helped Rafe arrange the chairs and table in the big dining room and place the chest in the bedroom—his wife's bedroom.

      
“He's buildin' a shrine ta her, ya know,” Joe had told the Mexican woman that morning after Rafe left the house.

      
Lucia had turned uneasily from his sad brown eyes. “What can we do? After all these years, he still searches.”

      
“Do you want Rafe to find his wife, Lucia?” Joe had asked softly, knowing she had loved her boss in pained silence for all the years since Rafe had rescued her from the Comanche.

      
“I want him to be happy,” she had said very carefully. “No one but Deborah can make him so.”

      
Joe, who loved Lucia the same constrained way she loved Rafe, turned his thoughts back to the man in the corral. He had just received some news, news he was not eager to impart to his young friend and partner

      
After Rafe finally dismounted, Joe took the sorrel's reins while the tall Creole strode over to the water trough and dipped his hat, replacing the sweat-soaked headgear and letting the cool water trickle down his bronzed temples and neck.

      
“Hottest August since I've been in Texas, I think,” he said to Joe. “Who was the rider I saw you talking to earlier?”

      
The two men ambled leisurely toward the stables with Bostonian following sedately behind them. The silence lengthened as Joe pondered. Rafe knew his partner would tell him when he was ready. Over the years, they had forged a unique friendship, sweating under the merciless sun, freezing in blue northers, laying stone for the house and running to ground the wild mustangs.

      
Finally Joe broke the silence. “Recall a drifter named Rameriz?”

      
Rafe's eyes bored into Joe's. “Yeah. He was also rumored to be a comanchero. Last I heard he was riding with some Mexican guerrillas, raiding Anglo settlers.”

      
“Thet's him. He wuz ridin' with a feller named Perez. Big things in th' wind with th' Mexican army. Perez has hisself a real commission now. Him and his ‘Defenders’ wuz headin' to Santone. Rameriz split with ‘em.”

      
Rafe stood very still. There was more to this than Joe had indicated so far. “Why would I care where Perez and his banditti head?”

      
“Rameriz figgered ya might, since last time ya saw him, ya wuz askin' a lotta questions about his old sidekick Enrique Flores.” Joe heard the intake of Rafe's breath.

      
If there was one thing that obsessed Rafe Fleming half as much as finding his wife, it was killing the comanchero who had sold him into slavery.

      
“Go on.” Rafe's eyes were glowing black coals.

      
“Flores might be ridin' with Perez. Seems old Santy Anny's fixin' ta try 'n retake Texas, er so rumors go. Lots o' troops movin' south o' th' border, 'n th' irregulars sent ta raid in Texas er being organized real quiet like. Rameriz said he seen Flores with Perez's outfit.”

      
“How much did that piece of information cost us?” Rafe inquired cynically.

      
Joe shrugged. “A few American banknotes and a pair o' half-broke mustangs.
Quien sabe?
Maybe he'll git throwed and break his neck.” He grinned evilly and Rafe joined him.

Chapter Twenty Two

      
“Damned fog,” Rafe muttered to Bostonian as he reined the big sorrel stallion to a slower pace. The pea soup fog followed a night of miserable drizzle, which had left the ground muddy and slick, treacherous for man and beast. Rafe was taking no chances that Bostonian might shy on the uneven morass that passed for a trail. This was the farthest southwest he had ever been in Texas. The muggy weather was unbearable. He would be glad never again to venture near San Antonio after his business with Flores was ended.

      
Rafe was trail-weary after the long, hot ride south. Traveling alone like this gave him too much time to think about Deborah and Adam. “Adam,” he said aloud, letting his son's name roll off his tongue, finding he liked the New England simplicity of it. He brooded over the thought that he might never see the boy. “He's six years old now, nearly half his childhood gone and I've missed it.”

      
By midday the fog lifted, replaced by blinding hot sunlight. The trail was well worn and easier to follow now as he neared the largest city in the Republic. Letting Bostonian have his head, Rafe suddenly heard the sound of hoof beats coming much too fast. He scanned the horizon, his hand automatically going to the Hawken rifle on his saddle and pulling it free.

      
A big, thick-set rider with a drooping handlebar mustache was headed his way. By the look of his light brown hair and plaid cotton shirt, he was Anglo. Each man took the other's measure as they pulled up their horses.

      
Rafe, seeing no one but the lone rider, let the rifle drop back into its scabbard. Still, he kept his right hand perched lightly over the Patterson Colt on his hip. “Afternoon,” he said guardedly. “Someone on your trail?”

      
The Texian's expression became quizzical and his tenseness lessened a bit as he leaned forward. “You ain't Mex, are ya?” He sounded relieved at the softly accented Texian drawl Rafe had acquired over the years.

      
Sensing something was amiss, Rafe replied, “No. I own a ranch north of here. Name's Rafe Fleming. You coming from San Antonio?”

      
“Yep. I'm Whalen Simpson. Own a livery stable, or at least I did afore them Mex soldiers captured the city this mornin',” he added angrily.

      
So Rameriz's information was right! Rafe's pulse quickened in anticipation as he asked, “You say a whole Mexican army took San Antonio?”

      
“Yeah. We held 'em off at daybreak. Figgered there's only a few hunnert of ‘em. When th' fog lifted, there was thousands o' them bastards, cannons 'n all. A few o' us escaped to spread th' alarm. Yew ain't fixin' to go to Santone, are ya? Real bad fer Texian health these days,” Simpson added.

      
Rafe grinned evilly. “My going to San Antonio might just be bad for someone else's health, too. I'll take my chances.” As he tipped his hat and pulled away, Rafe had to laugh at Simpson's yelled warnings. Little did the frightened stable keeper know that Rafe would revert to being Rafael Flamenco. Until he spoke, Simpson had thought he looked Mexican. His Spanish ancestry and fluency in the language should get him into the city. Rafe would just have to gamble that it would.

      
It was easier than he'd imagined. The youthful sentry who first challenged him outside of town looked to be a cadet scarcely out of knee breeches. The boy directed him to his lieutenant, an older soldier who questioned him cursorily and then ordered the private to escort him to the Mexican headquarters.

      
As they rode to General Woll's office, Rafe observed that this was indeed a city under martial law, occupied by a foreign invader. Few people were on the streets and those who ventured forth were subdued and watchful. He learned much of what was going on from his casual conversation with the soldier. Adrian Woll was a French mercenary in the pay of Santa Anna, a cultured European as well as a brilliant military tactician.
I can turn that to my advantage.
If Woll was like most Frenchmen abroad, he would be overjoyed to converse with someone fluent in his native language.

      
First Rafe must win over Woll, then find out about Perez. Once he located the captain and his irregulars, he could ferret out Flores. He had made up a story about searching for his runaway sister, enticed from her family's loving arms by a villainous Yankee. Now the aggrieved Flamencos planned to retrieve the disgraced young woman and place her in a convent. The tale hit close to home as he sadly remembered how poorly he and his parents had treated Lenore. Thank God she was well and happy now, with two children, according to the last letter he had received from her and Caleb. Stupid waste, he thought, then shook off the disquieting reminiscence as his escort dismounted in front of a large, whitewashed adobe building.

      
The structure was an impressive private residence on the Main Plaza, obviously commandeered as Woll's headquarters.
I'll have to play my cards very carefully to get to Flores.

      
After waiting the better part of an hour in a comfortably furnished anteroom, Rafe was shown in to see the general. Adrian Woll was a surprisingly young-looking man with rather blunt features and the pale complexion common among people from Alsace-Lorraine. Despite his reputation as a shrewd and skillful mercenary, his manner was flowery and gracious, doubtless the result of his long sojourn in Mexico.

      
“A thousand apologies for the delay in seeing you. I understand you have journeyed all the way from Nacogdoches in search of your wronged sister, Mr. Flamenco,” the general said in Spanish, his tone solicitous as he reached out to shake Rafe's hand.